The hazard of too much "stuff"

[LONDONER]

OK, own up, who has too much "stuff"?

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-3084947...a&ns_fee=0

[Lexington]

My partner is something of a hoarder. Not to any degree that you'd find him on a reality show, but he always gets antsy when I start doing a heavy "clean" of the place. I found out he gets it from his mother. I went with him to visit her, and found her debating whether or not to throw away some paystubs from 1987.

Lex

[East]

I have too much stuff BUT I constantly work on it...

I don't really have a mess anywhere and our house is clean but both of us love weird things and we both collect stuff so it accumulates...

My secret for years now...If I don't love it...I let it go. It works. It was a suggestion I read in one of my new age books and it made a lot of sense what she said...

[Lexington]

My secret for years now...If I don't love it...I let it go. It works. It was a suggestion I read in one of my new age books and it made a lot of sense what she said...

That's more or less my rule. If I haven't worn an article of clothing in a year, out it goes. If I have an item that I haven't referred to or used in a year, and I can't foresee an obvious need for it, out it goes.

Lex

[Rareboy]

Stuffocation.......

Tell me about it.

Our house is full of things from at least 4 generations on both sides of my family and 34 years of happily gathering more and more things....from the usual furnishings and ornaments to the electronic equipment and all the generations of media that go along with it. So for example we still have about 1500 vinyl albums (after editing), Videos, tapes, CD's.....omg.

A few years ago, we bought another building just to help hold stuff. And I swear, we aren't hoarders. Everything has a place and the house is not packed to the rafters with stuff.

But there's change in the wind. I am sending a friend/former partner a list of all the stuff that got moved out to the farm when his mother died. The moment that their last loan payment clears...I want that truckload of stuff gone.

I'm also on a year long housecleaning binge. So everything has to meet a quality and use test. All the electronics...even those that are in working order but unused go to Habitat for humanity. The boxes of paperbacks being edited out of the library are earmarked for the Hospital. The clothes that don't fit...or are just unworn or worn out....gone.

I also have my entire professional business to deal with and this past year we have boxed hundreds of files for storage; we've deleted everything that we can get on-line and am now looking ahead to emptying as much as possible over the next two or three years so that when I retire, it will be easy to walk away...although I know that I am going to have to have a fire sale of all the furniture, equipment and art-work....No fucking way is it going to follow me home.

Buckminster Fuller posed that question 'How much does a building weigh?'

I pose the same question to everyone all the time....'Do you know how much your lives weigh?'

[Borg69]

I am/was a packrat... although when the BF and I bought a house and moved in together 3 years ago the major majority of my stuff to this day remains boxed up in my half of the garage. I learned to live without it, yet I can't bring myself to actually get rid of it. HE on the other hand I have to constantly try to rein in on the crap/stuff he wants to buy every weekend. How many crock pots does one person need to own !?!?!? -His side of the garage is almost as full is my side as well.

[jimcrackcorn]

My home looks clean & presentable,,, just don't open any closet doors or drawers. They are packed to the gills with stuff that we don't need - but can't let go of.

[LJay]

Guilty. Plagued by it.

[Bhp91126]

I can stop any time I want to. Really, I'm not attached to stuff.

We are actually pretty good about it, going through our stuff and tossing things, often we do this on weekends in a different spot each time. A condo forces you to do rigorous pruning. Esp. those tiny FL-size walk in closets.

[CellarDweller]

I do my best to keep my apartment orderly, but I'm a "collector". I have my books, my Super Friends collection and my Brokeback Mountain collection.

Oh, and my CDS. LOL